Blogs from Czech Republic, Europe - page 249

We lounged around in the club room at the Hilton for a while. By the end of our stay; the entire club room staff just wanted us to leave. I wore sweatpants there, and we did take advantage of the free booze and food, but they really didnt need to hate us. No one ever actually said anything to us, but you could tell. Anyways, we headed out for a second day around the city. We ended up walking a ton, probably close to 15 miles in like 6 hours. We saw the "Dancing House", the City's main park, and walked generally all over the city again. As I said already, the city was awesome. It was so clean, and nice, but it was generally small. By 7, we were ready to head back before it ... read more

Deciding to leave the safe confines of a country where I speak the language, I headed off to East Midlands Airport near Nottingham and caught a flight to the Czech Republic. Flying into Prague was thrilling, except for the load of boisterous British men flying with me for some sort of stag party. I had never visited an eastern European city before and I wondered just how different it would be from western Europe. After all, the fall of Communism in places like the Czech Republic is a fairly recent event in the scheme of things and surely it must have left an imprint on this new republic. Since I seemed to have made such and impression on British passport control, I wondered what sort of questions I would be asked as I entered the Czech ... read more

Nessie and Don, from Scotland, visited IBTS for a week or so. Last year Don was here painting for two weeks. He was scheduled to come with Bob earlier this year, again to paint, but health problems prevented him from making that trip. We were so sad when he didn't come with Bob. But our sorrow turned into joy! He got well and not only did he come but his wife came with him. She is also a very dear lady. We got to eat breakfast with them quite a few mornings. They came for the reunion of the students in the Certificate of Applied Theology program. The two of them had worked as volunteers one year a few years ago and Nessie had taught English to the new students that year. They have kept in ... read more

Who EVER could imagine the day when a full TON, yes 2,000 pounds of books, were delivered to their library? We can now. Today a truck pulled up with books we had been expecting. Our school made a good trade with a company in the USA. In return for our donating a set of very valuable books to them for resale to another library, they are sending us much more than the equivalent cost of those books (which were totally irrelevant in our library since they supported none of our curriculum). (And today's shipment was merely the first of many we will receive.) The unloading was quite a feat! Various library workers, staff and volunteer, were running around doing this work while I, Nancy, was safely upstairs in the English classroom teaching for several hours. That ... read more

We had a slow start. My flight from Las Vegas to Chicago was delayed and I missed my Munich connection. Good news was that my good friends Mary and Fred Garzino came to the rescue and gave me a bed for the night as well as dinner and a good visit. Arrived in Munich Sunday to pouring rain. Has been cold and raining in varying degrees ever since, but have still been able to see the sights and do some biking. The RV is small, but that makes it easier to drive. Tight space, but lots of storage and has everything we need. We have camped alternately in very well maintained campgrounds or in gas station/rest stops on the highway. This is acceptable in Europe. Bought bikes in Munich and went to the Hofbrauhaus in honor ... read more